THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
109 
GOD’S KIGIIEST GIFTS ARE FREE TO ALL 
A Tribute to Nature by the tate C. S. Harrison 
Many of the richest gifts of Nature and providence 
are free to all. You may be poor, yet you own an interest 
in the glorious sun, in the joy of the morning and the 
sweet repose of the evening. You can wander, as well 
as others through the forest of parks of our glorious land. 
Others may ride, but you can walk, take time to visit with 
dear old Mother Nature. She has been waiting for you 
and what preparation she has made for your coming. 
She throws open the gates of her picture gallery and lets 
you behold a pageantry of splendor no brush can produce 
or pen describe. You can see the fleecy clouds touched 
with tints of carmine edged with opal, lazily drifting 
through the azure and coquetishly resting in the lap of 
the mountains. You can study the trees and visit the 
flowers in God’s great garden He has kept so well. You 
can breathe the fresh air, electric with life which thrills 
you with the joy of living. What millionaire in his 
princely auto can compare with a lover of nature, who 
with a sack of flour and a little bacon, with staff in hand, 
who leisurely plods along, feasting his soul at the ban¬ 
quets of God, a loyal son of nature, brother of the forests 
and mountains? 
Though the toilers cannot afford jewel caskets they 
have an equal interest in the glorious sun and in all the 
colors woven in the rainbow. The poor woman, to satisfy 
her soul hunger plants a little patch of flowers and all the 
unseen forces of nature come to visit and aid her, and she 
has the finest flowers of all, owing to her loving care. 
She knows them, she studies their wants and the ladies 
of the palace gladly sit at her feet as she tells them how 
to treat these royal visitors, the flowers. Her joy is great, 
if not greater than that of the rich woman who takes out 
her jewel casket and fondles her gems, for sometimes she 
does this with fear and trembling, lest they be stolen. The 
soul of this woman attuned to the beauties and harmonies 
of nature is far happier than the other and when winter 
comes her windows are lined wdtli the delights of sum¬ 
mer and so her jewels last all through the year. 
One who leads the simple life can say, “The sun, the 
moon, the stars are mine; the free fresh air, the shower, 
the light which discloses all the forms of beauty.” My 
neighbor has rich grounds, I can feast my eyes upon them 
for he plants for me as well as himself. There is olten 
an altruism in the planting of private grounds so the 
passer by can share the delights of the owner. Sitting 
on the porch with a friend in Rrookline in Massachusetts, 
where there are more millionaires to the acre than any 
other city in the union, I said to him, “You seem to own a 
good many flower gardens, I can see a dozen from where 
w^e sit.” “Yes,” he said, “we plant for each other, we 
have our flowers in the front yard where we can all owm 
those belonging to a neighbor. Often one will plant what 
another has not. Flowers are more beautiful than grass 
and dandelions, so we plant for ourselves and also for 
the poor working girls and the other toilers as they take 
their evening walks. Their eyes own them as well as 
ours and we are glad to contribute to their enjoyment and 
to hear the expressed delight of the children as they walk 
with their mothers at the close of day.” 
AN APPRECIATION OF A GREAT CHARACTER 
Tribute to the Memory of Chartes Simmons Harrison 
Read at His Funeral Service by T. E. Sedgwick. 
Friends: It is my privilege to lay a more enduring 
wreath upon the bier of our friend and benefaetor. 
Truly, what we say here matters nothing to him of 
whom it is said, hut it is well worth while for us to pause 
a few moments beside these ashes while we recount 
some of the most interesting and beneficient qualities of 
this remarkable man. 
I understood him as well, perhaps, as such a unique 
and many-sided charaeter can be fathomed. I knew 
him in his ambitious young manhood, in the far-flung 
activities of his middle life, and in the unflagging useful¬ 
ness of his ripened years. 
His most prominent characteristic was his unfailing 
loyalty to his religion and his God. It can be safely said 
he never for a moment doubted the reality of his religion, 
nor that it was his duty to stand firm for the right, as 
God gave him to see the right. 
When an issue arose the only question with him was 
as to the right side, and, having decided, he was not an 
idle spectator, nor a mere soldier in the ranks. He was 
a masterful leader, a hold champion, and a furious 
fighter for the right. 
Loyalty to his friends was another characteristie prom¬ 
inent in his life. He would go as far as right and truth 
wmuld let him to assist one in whom he was interested. 
Here, over his silent remains, I am pleased to acknow"- 
ledge the benefit of this loyalty on more than one occa¬ 
sion. 
Mr. Harrison was never idle. The amount of work, 
mental and physical, that he did wvas prodigious. He 
wms highly educated and possessed a most admirable 
command of language. His addresses w-ere eloquent, 
often thrilling, and sometimes approached the sublime. 
No man who loved flowers as he did, and who so 
adored nature in all her gorgeous panoply, could he any 
thing hut tender and kind. Beneath his armor beat a 
tender heart, easily and deeply touched by suffering and 
sorrows I speak of him as he w^as before the ills of age 
and the inroads of disease had multiplied upon him. His 
enthusiasm was no greater in his contests with evil than 
in his sympathy with the poor, the suffering and the sad. 
He was always a leader, brave, strong and courageous. 
He hesitated at no opposition nor feared any foe. In 
every community where he lived he was a power for 
good all the time. 
What he did for York is a story of itself, and may be 
told on some future oecasion by some one better qualified 
to tell it. Those who have recently come to York may 
wonder why this city is so much larger than any of the 
surrounding county seats, and wiiy it is so free from 
crime, wiiy it has so many beautiful trees and so choice 
a population, hut the early dwmllers know. They saw^ 
the fight that was ahvays lead by Mr. Harrison to drive 
out saloons, to drive out all that is against good eitizen- 
ship and good morals, and with one accord they yield the 
palm to him. 
“Because he hath set his love upon Me therefore will 
I deliver him. I will set him on high because he hath 
